The Gift of Time

Being at the abbey gave me time. Time to read and study. Time to compare and study three translations. Time to allow the desire to dig deep really take root.



It gave me time to jot down my thoughts. Time to read and reread, meditate upon verses, study, and write down thoughts that God brought to mind as I studied scripture.

If I could but carve out, daily, that precious gift of unhurried time in my own life back at home.

(The view from the desk in my room at the abbey Retreat House.)

Thus Have They Loved to Wander

Thus saith the Lord unto this people, Thus have they loved to wander,
they have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord doth not accept them;
He will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins.

Then said the Lord unto me, Pray not for this people for their good.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.

Jeremiah 14: 10-12 KJV

This cow wandered onto the gravel road that runs through the abbey site. There were other places with better grazing, but he stayed here with two other cows for quite some time.

How often we stray from greener pastures. How different our lives would be if we would but graze where the Lord has provided what we need.

As I read Jeremiah I think that God seems to have turned His back on our country, just as He turned His back on Judah. For my children's sakes, I plead like Abraham, asking God to spare us for the sake of even ten righteous men.

WWGWD?

What Would George Washington Do?

I don't think he'd push for government run health care. Or Cash for Clunkers.

Maybe this will help you to feel a little better about our current congress.

"From the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
'Peace, peace,' they say,
when there is no peace.
Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct?
No, they have no shame at all'
they do not even know how to blush.
So they will fall among the fallen;
they will be brought down when I punish them."

Jeremiah 6: 13-15 NIV

Chant and Time

I'm listening to "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" from the German Requiem by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). It nearly moves me to uncontrollable tears each time I hear it, so beautiful is the writing. So, while I wouldn't want a diet of only Gregorian Chant, I do enjoy listening to the sisters of the abbey sing.

This excerpt from Music of Silence helps me understand why. Author David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, strives to show how to "incorporate the sacred meaning of monastic life into our everyday lives."

Saturated with information but often bereft of meaning, we feel caught in a never-ending swirl of duties and demands, things to finish, things to put right. Yet as we dart anxiously from one activity to the next, we sense that there is more to life than our worldly agendas.

Our uneasiness and our frantic scrambling are caused by our distorted sense of time, which seems to be continually running out. Western culture reinforces this misconception of time as a limited commodity: We are always meeting deadlines; we are always short on time, we are always running out of time.

Chant music, on the other hand, evokes a different relationship to time, one in which time, while precious, isn't scarce. The pure, serene, yet soaring sounds of the chant remind us that there is another way to live in this noisy, distracted world, and this way is not as out of reach as it might seem.

Blog to Try

My husband stumbled onto this blog. I haven't read much, but a quick perusal looks interesting. You may want to try it, too.

Theology in Verse

(This picture of the church doors comes from the blog.)

Hay and Humbleness

"Monks, like those who farm or fish according to seasons and tides, are especially attuned to the language nature speaks, and they tend to have a healthy and realistic humility regarding their own control over the events of life."
Kathleen Norris

I was walking down the 3/4 mile road from the retreatants' house to the Abbey Chapel and there they were. Two hay bales on the road, with remnants of a third in the ditch. A closer inspection showed tractor marks in the gravel road, at angles that made it appear someone had tried turning around on the road.

The bales had not been there when we walked back from Sext (Midday Prayer). But they were there a few hours later, and there they stayed until at least mid-morning the next day.

When I first saw them, along with the road sign "SLOW DOWN," I thought of a funny caption. "Yes, even nuns make mistakes." But, at Vespers (Evening Prayer), I watched the sisters diligently chanting the Psalms, and thought of how at least one of the nuns in front of me knew about the hay in the road, and knew the bales needed to be moved. I scanned the nuns on each side of the chapel, each one looking as calm as the next. The sister who was responsible for moving the bales didn't skip Vespers to work on the hay. She knew that it would get done in due time. Her job now was to worship God. She had a "healthy and realistic humility" regarding her control over the events in her life.

That's one of the lessons I am always reminded of at the Abbey: slow down and keep your priorities in order. Don't put off praising God because of the errant hay bales of life.